This is a bit salty, but the trend for new retro-style CD players and cassette players. It is a great sign that people want offline dedicated music experiences, but I want to see new ideas.

I’m specifically interested in ideas that push for digital music purchasing because it’s far better for musicians than buying that second-hand CD. I want my kids’ generation not to be stuck in a retro cycle, or a doomed big tech cycle.

I want to see thoughtfully created indie tech products that could not have existed at any other time. Plus, I remember cassettes, they sound awful.

What is one thing you wish you had created? I will answer this with a song: three years after my debut album, when I should have had my second album together, I heard “Jump In The Pool” by Friendly Fires, featuring one of the most stunning synth solos of all time.

I would have loved to have created that song at that time. Especially since I’d pushed myself and my then manager fully-clothed into a pool around that time and hadn’t even thought to write a song about it.

What is your current obsession? Been an obsession for quite a while but it’s still: carports in architecture.

I’m a car guy, I’m a very visually-focused car guy. I’m not really fussed about performance or track racing or anything.

My real love is the design of the automobile and how it’s an emotive expression of movement. The perfect abode to me has car(s) on show, not hidden away in a garage, but still protected, so the carport becomes this perfect idea.

I’m obsessed with mid-century desert architecture which incorporated the automobile so well into the language of the house, but even in the rainy UK, being able to get in and out of your car without getting wet would just make me so happy, I think haha. What’s the last piece of physical media you bought?

I buy lots of fiction books. I love a small paperback.

I just picked up a book called The Cowards based purely on the cover. I’ve just finished a load of Steinbeck, so looking for something else.

It’s funny that I often use the shortest elevator pitch “Sleevenote is a Kindle for music”, but I’ve never liked the idea of a digital book. Most people read one book at a time, but having all your music accessible at any one time is much more of a reason for a digitisation of a collection, it seems to me.

What do you think is worth splurging on? Digital music downloads are worth splurging on.

We’ve been led to believe there’s no point in buying anything digitally, but it’s standing in plain sight as the best thing to do with things like music. Not only does it send far greater support for artists, but it gives us music fans offline and time-stamped access to great art, and being encouraged to spend some time with a curated selection of art, we all know is good for the mind and soul.

I want Sleevenote to enable this. What would the tagline for your biopic be?

Encompassing all my work, I suspect it would be “Nothing But Green Lights”, the name of one of my songs, which I’d also apply to my work with other projects. It’s good, not always easy, to try to think there’s nothing in the way of going where you want to go.

What’s the last GIF or meme you used? Follow topics and authors from this story to see more like this in your personalized homepage feed and to receive email updates.

Anthropic's move toward a historic US stock market listing has brought the initial public offering (IPO) process into focus, highlighting the regulatory reviews...